The Creativity Multiplier Series | Part 2 of 3
Fergus Kibble | FORWARD Agency | June 2026
TL;DR
In This Article
In Part 1 of this series, I laid out the data on the creativity multiplier: a 12x profitability advantage for high-quality creative, 47% of FMCG sales uplift driven by creative quality, and a growing crisis as short-termism erodes the conditions for creativity to work.
But creative quality on its own is only half the equation. The real multiplier comes from what happens after the creative work is made. Specifically, whether it earns attention beyond the media buy.
This is the territory where earned media transforms good creative into a genuine commercial weapon.
The Weber Shandwick Collective, working with consultant Peter Field and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), analysed over 340 case studies across B2B and B2C sectors and 60 product categories from the IPA's Databank. The resulting study, "The Earned Effect," asked a straightforward question: do campaigns that earn coverage and conversation outperform those that do not?
The answer was definitive.
Culturally salient campaigns, those that earn media coverage, earn social conversation, and demonstrate longevity, outperformed other campaigns on every commercial metric measured. 57% drove very large sales gains. 40% drove very large market share gains. They were 53% more likely to deliver very large business effects overall, and 2.6 times more likely to achieve very large profit growth.
The Numbers
57% very large sales gains. 40% very large market share gains. 53% more likely to deliver very large business effects. 2.6x more likely to achieve very large profit growth. These are not incremental improvements. These are fundamentally different commercial outcomes.
The study also found that culturally salient campaigns drove "halo effects" 11 percentage points larger than non-culturally salient campaigns. When a campaign earns genuine cultural traction, the benefits extend beyond the specific product or message into broader brand perception.
Perhaps most importantly for CMOs managing tight budgets: culturally salient campaigns make budgets go further. The earned coverage and organic conversation effectively extend the reach of the campaign without additional media spend. Every piece of media coverage, every social share, every conversation at a dinner table becomes an unpaid impression that compounds the original investment.
This is why PR value was tracked as a metric by 71% of the most creatively awarded and effective ideas, compared to just 29% for all awarded campaigns. The most effective work does not just buy attention. It earns it. And that earned attention is where the commercial advantage multiplies.
Cultural salience is not a buzzword. In the context of this research, it refers to campaigns that achieve three things: they earn media coverage from journalists and editors, they earn conversation from consumers (social sharing, word of mouth), and they demonstrate longevity beyond a single news cycle.
The common thread across these campaigns is that they tap into something real. An emotion, a social tension, a cultural moment, a human truth. They do not just interrupt. They participate in culture in a way that makes people want to talk about them.
Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign is the canonical example. It earned over $150 million in media exposure value, generated 163 million YouTube views for the "Real Beauty Sketches" film alone, and won the Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix. More importantly, it drove over $1 billion in global sales growth. The creative idea tapped into a genuine cultural tension around beauty standards, and the earned media multiplier turned a communications campaign into a commercial engine.
Case In Point
Dove's "Real Beauty" started with a genuine consumer truth, not a product feature. The creative quality created the conditions for earned media, and the earned media amplified the commercial impact far beyond what paid media alone could have achieved. $150M+ in media value. $1B+ in sales growth.
PR agencies have traditionally measured success in impressions and media clips. But the "Earned Effect" research shows that earned media is not a soft metric. It is a commercial multiplier. Campaigns that earn coverage deliver measurably different business outcomes than campaigns that do not.
The implication for brands is clear: earned media should not be an afterthought bolted onto a paid media plan. It should be integral to the creative strategy from the start. The question should not be "how do we get coverage for this campaign?" but "how do we create something that culture wants to talk about?"
And the implication for PR agencies is equally clear: the value we deliver is not measured in column centimetres or impressions. It is measured in the commercial multiplier that earned media creates when paired with genuinely distinctive creative work.
At FORWARD, this is the thesis we have built our agency around. FORWARD (Earned) + Ferocious (Creative) + Two Palms Media (Social) exists precisely because the research shows these three capabilities compound each other. Creativity is the fuel. Earned media is the accelerant. Social velocity is how it spreads.
In Part 3 of this series, I will explore how this equation has taken on an entirely new dimension: the role of earned media in AI search visibility, and why creative earned media is now the most valuable digital asset a brand can build.
Earned Media That Drives Commercial Results
FORWARD creates culturally salient campaigns that earn attention, build brand perception, and deliver measurable commercial outcomes. Start with a conversation.
Sources
The Earned Effect is a study conducted by The Weber Shandwick Collective with consultant Peter Field and the IPA. It analysed over 340 case studies from the IPA Databank and found that culturally salient campaigns, those that earn media coverage and social conversation, deliver significantly better commercial outcomes than campaigns that rely solely on paid media.
According to the Earned Effect study, culturally salient campaigns that earn coverage and conversation deliver 57% very large sales gains, 40% very large market share gains, are 53% more likely to drive very large business effects, and are 2.6 times more likely to achieve very large profit growth compared to campaigns that do not achieve cultural salience.
A culturally salient campaign achieves three things: it earns media coverage from journalists and editors, it earns conversation from consumers through social sharing and word of mouth, and it demonstrates longevity beyond a single news cycle. These campaigns typically tap into genuine emotions, social tensions, cultural moments, or human truths rather than focusing solely on product features.
Earned media effectively extends campaign reach without additional media spend. Every piece of media coverage, social share, and organic conversation becomes an unpaid impression that compounds the original investment. The Earned Effect study found that culturally salient campaigns drove halo effects 11 percentage points larger than non-culturally salient campaigns, meaning the benefits extend beyond the specific campaign into broader brand perception.
The research shows that campaigns designed to earn attention deliver measurably different business outcomes than those designed solely for paid distribution. Integrating earned media thinking from the beginning of the creative process means building ideas around cultural truths and tensions that audiences want to engage with and share, rather than trying to retrofit media coverage onto a finished campaign.
